Editor’s note: When Joshua Kricker sent us a link to this video this afternoon, we were astonished. At center stage in this video, shot on October 28th at a “Moral Monday” protest in Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital, is 12 year old Madison Kimrey from Burlington, NC. She’s been in the news a lot recently, both locally and nationally, for publicly opposing NC’s Republican governor Pat McCrory’s support of voter suppression laws with poise and grace, not to mention intelligence. Huffington Post says, “This 12-year-old will restore your faith in the future of politics.” A couple of days ago, CNBC made her their “Disrupter of the Week” and said, “…the governor of North Carolina is fighting a 12-year-old. And he’s losing.”

Watch the video. Decide for yourself. We think this young lady is simply amazing…

The Other Sunday Funnies

The trouble is, a Republican can’t get the presential nod from his or her party by appealing to sanity. There’s no middle of the road when seeking to get approval from the wingnuts. Therefore, we seem to be doomed with constantly having to suffer those Republicans who have eyes on the White House.

Editor’s note: Yesterday we came across this three minute short, which evidently ran as a television commercial in Thailand, and were so moved by it that we’re passing it on to you. If everyone lived their lives like the people in this film, we figure we wouldn’t need laws or politics. Yup, it’s a pipe dream, but one worthy of consideration, we think.

If you’re at work don’t worry. Go ahead and watch; it’s subtitled. You can keep the volume down. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to share so your friends can see it too.

The press, run by giant corporations by the way, wants you to believe the problems facing the United States are complicated. From the mass media we hear that we are a nation divided by a complex range of issues which they then fire at us like bullets from an Uzi, in a constant stream. We buy into this and define our stand on an issue by issue by issue basis. All you need do is take a look at your Facebook “newsfeed” to see this process at work. Over and over and over again we express our position on everything from same-sex marriage to health care rights to the environment to Julian Assange.

The Other Sunday Funnies

Welcome to a new feature on If This Be Treason.

The Other Sunday Funnies isn’t what comes buried in the advertising section of your Sunday newspaper. Nor is it intended to mimic the clip feature that some of you have come to expect at the end of ABC’s This Week every Sunday morning, which basically just offers up some stand-up one liners from late night TV, mostly of a populist and reactionary nature–anything for a yuk you know.

In our feature here, we’re hoping to bring you some biting and insightful social and political commentary from some extremely bright minds. In our experience, a comedian with a sharp wit can often offer us a clearer understanding of a political process than even the most astute political analyst. One joke is worth a thousand words–or something like that.

If you see a video clip that you think would be appropriate for The Other Sunday Funnies, send us a link through the “Contact Us” feature just below our masthead.

For our inaugural Sunday Funny, we’re offering-up a clip that was supplied to us by our contributing writer Joshua Kricker. Here, George Carlin seems to talk from us from beyond the grave. His insights eerily would seem to refer to Mr. Obama’s plans for Syria…

There used to be a sign that hung on the gate to the entrance to Fort Dix (the army training ground in New Jersey ) in 1969: “OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW IS FREEDOM.” It probably was not as bad as the sign on the gate to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI,” (Work is Freedom), but to those of us opposing the Vietnam War in 1969, the two sentiments and the source from where they sprung certainly seemed similar.

A while after leaving Canada and returning to the United States, I enrolled in state college and majored in political science. One of the first questions that arose in class was, “what makes a legitimate government?” I had long thought about this during the terms of Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon. It’s still a basic axiom that governments remain legitimate only so long as they rule with the consent of the governed. The people give that consent (it does not have to be verbally acknowledged or recognized; it can be tacit consent, i.e. doing nothing to oppose the government’s policies) as long as they at least have some belief that there are relatively fair elections and through our elected representatives we have some voice in the laws that are made and the policies being carried out. At least that’s the theory in America. If you’re living under a blatant military dictatorship another set of principles apply.

The sarin gas attack on Syrian civilians on August 21, 2013 was a horrific crime. The scenes of people writhing in pain and expiring was not something that any rational human being would or should be able to turn away from. There’s not much controversy that gas was used. Looking at the videos of the attack leaves little room for doubt.

There is, however, a controversy about who was responsible. According to an article initially published by the Mint Press and later picked up by Examiner.com, rebels admitted to receiving the materials from Prince Bandar Bin Sultan the chief of Saudi Intelligence.

Anyone who has occasion to sit in the County District Courts of North Carolina, the state where I reside, can’t help but see and hear the endless parade of defendants appearing before the judge on routine traffic infractions resulting in the imposition of court costs and sometimes fines.

The court costs are generally $189.00. If someone is unable to pay, a late fee of $70.00 is tacked on and the privilege to operate a vehicle is revoked. If caught operating a vehicle while the privilege is revoked, that person could, until very recently, be subject to up to 120 days incarceration, even though the sole reason for the revocation was inability to pay a fine. The legislature, not long ago, amended the statute to repeal incarceration as a penalty, provided the reason for the revocation was neither Driving Under the Influence nor Reckless Driving.

These days American government is all just a magician’s show, nothing but slight of hand and misdirection.

That’s only to be expected. For years Congress, the Presidency, Wall Street and about everyone else who holds the real keys to ownership in this country has been maintaining the illusion that you and I, who have nothing but a borrowed pot to piss in, are actually the owners of this great land and that the government works for us.